


The Shade: Tea and Sympathy

by Devilc



Series: Shadows and Lanterns [2]
Category: DCU, DCU - Comicverse, JSA
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-07
Updated: 2010-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-07 18:57:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Devilc/pseuds/Devilc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of Manhunter #18 Todd Rice and Shade have a talk</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shade: Tea and Sympathy

**Author's Note:**

> After the events of _Manhunter #18_ my ShadeMuse returned and told me about the conversation he had with Todd Rice.

The Shade thinks he's had more contact with various JSA affiliates in friendly situations during the last six months than he ever had during decades of being a "master criminal". It's to the point that he's actually thought about giving his contact information to Jay Garrick or Alan Scott rather than have them contact him through Jack Knight. But, on the other hand, it keeps him in touch with Jack, who doesn't seem to mind playing the messenger for old friends of his father.

He's seated in a Starbucks, waiting. The things he lets himself be talked into ....

It took him a few moments to recognize the man walking his way. Tall, broad shoulders, short brown hair, blue eyes. Gray polo shirt, faded blue jeans, slightly battered Converses on his feet. Nervously chewing his bottom lip.

"Shade?"

He smiled. "Yes."

"Oh, it's just, I was expecting"

"Somehow, I didn't think the usual look would be appropriate this time. A bit too attention grabbing, don't you think? I asked Jack's assistance, and this is how he dressed me," The Shade said, indicating his black t-shirt, black Dickies, five eyelet Doc Martin oxfords (he wasn't so sure about the lug soles, but Jack assured him they "never went out of style"), embroidered vest (adding a touch of sober color), and a pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarers (which Jack also assured him "never went out of style").

"Now, there's an image." But the attempt at levity didn't quite reach those blue eyes.

The Shade stood. "I'd invite you to take a seat, Todd, but we won't be staying here. Dressed like what Jack calls a 'gothboi', sitting in an outpost of the evil burnt coffee empire  it's bad for my image. Do you know a real place to get a cup of coffee?"

The smile reached Todd's eyes this time. "I do."

~oo(0)oo~

The Shade took a swallow of his tea. It was an independent coffee house, lovingly furnished with ratty velvet couches, old lamps, and an eclectic variety of tables and chairs. He would have had coffee, but when he noticed Lapsang Souchong on their tea menu .... Setting the cup back on the saucer he said, "So, what's his name and how long have you known him?"

He didn't restrain his smirk as Todd choked on his coffee.

"I didn't say"

"Todd, your note to me said that you were 'in a relationship' and had some questions to ask about your powers. If you were dating a woman, you would have made mention of a girlfriend by now. Instead, you're incredibly gender neutral. Also, almost every person in this establishment is a man. The barista is wearing a rainbow bead necklace, has a lisp that defies dethsripthion, and asked me if I was doing anything this evening. I'm no Ralph Dibny, but even I can pick up the clues."

Sigh. "His name is Damon. I've known him about six months."

"Mmm. I presume you didn't call me here to ask my advice on using shadow for sport in the bedroom?"

"My powers," Todd whispered, deathly pale, "what if they come back?"

The Shade shrugged and took another swallow of tea. "What if they do?"

"I-I can't  how do you keep it at bay? The darkness? The madness? If-if I hurt Damon..." Todd's voice trailed off.

"'The darkness'? 'The madness'? It's just shadow, Todd. It's just blackness. It's nothing until we make it something."

"Wh-what?!"

The Shade leaned forward a bit and said softly, "Maybe it's different for you, you were born to it. I had it ... grafted ... on to me as an adult. But in all my time of dealing with the shadowrealm, I've learned that there is nothing there that is not already" he tapped his chest "in here."

"Oh my God." Todd slumped, putting his head in his hands. In an agonized voice he choked out, "I'm a monster."

"Yes." Pause. "But who isn't?"

Todd looked up at that, eyes wet with unshed tears.

"Oh, there's many a thing I have done, many a thing I haven't, but probably should have, with my shadows." The Shade took another drink of tea. "I am told that yours was a hard childhood."

"That's putting it lightly." Todd took a deep, shuddery breath and dabbed at his eyes with a napkin.

"Mine wasn't. At least not by the standards of the day. I had an education. We lived in a good brick house with a stables out back. We had servants. We had breakfast, luncheon, tea, and dinner. Yet, I have known horrors unimaginable in this day and age. I remember the mud larks on the flats when the tide was out, seeing one step on a rusty spike hidden in the muck. I remember her scream, full of pain yet tinged with the horror of knowing she was probably going to die from lockjaw. It's an especially ugly way to die. I can still hear the rattle of air drawn into consumptive lungs and I remember handkerchiefs of the finest Irish linen, edged with Brussels lace, spotted with blood. I remember the smell of the open wounds on the arms of one particular beggar. And then there was the smell of summer in London, before the great sewer works, when anybody who had the means left before the miasma got too thick. We had the means. I can't imagine what it was like at its height"

"How old are you? I mean, I always thought you were my dad's age."

A furrow crossed the Shade's brow. "Let's just say that I remember Victorian times."

"Oh."

"Indeed."

Softly. "Does this mean I'm going to stop aging? If I get my powers back?"

The Shade shrugged. "I rather doubt it. You were born with it. You aged after you came into your own. Me? I haven't aged a day since it was done to me."

"Oh."

"Yes. But what I was getting at is, I never viewed my gifts as inherently anything. They just are. It's a grand and terrible power to be sure, but there's no reason I can't call forth pixies or daisies or finches ... though those things would look rather strange all black."

Todd replied, "But me on the other hand. I always felt ... I mean, I was raised to believe that I was somehow wrong, that I was bad. And when I first realized that I  I was so determined to prove that no, I was good. But that voice. That niggling voice in the back of my mind"

"It ate you alive."

"Yes. So we can safely say that because I thought my powers were bad, they were. The fact that I wasn't exactly sane didn't help, either."

"More or less." The Shade slouched back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. "But here's the real question, Todd, have you silenced that voice in your head?"

"I think so. I mean, yes. I have. I think for the first time in my life I actually feel comfortable, happy, being me."

"And when they call you faggot, what then?"

Todd snorted. "They already have. I'm done feeling bad about who I am. Water off a duck's back."

Pause.

"And if the Reverend Fred Phelps finds out about you and pickets your home?"

Todd rolled his eyes. "I shall resist temptation," he said in a rote manner.

A smile snaked its way on to Shade's face. "A pity then," He quipped glibly. "I'd send him to a dark, cold, place and not think twice."

Todd's face hardened. "How can you joke about that? To me, especially."

"I can do many things, Todd." The Shade stood, stretched, and made ready to go. "But, rest assured, should you ever try to cover the world in shadow again, I will not sit idly by. Once was more than enough."

Todd chortled ruefully. "You've seen what I can do. I've faced off against you before. You  you're not in my league anymore"

The Shade leaned down, bracing himself on the table. "What you've seen are parlor tricks conjured for mischief making," he hissed.

Todd swallowed hard.

The Shade leaned in even closer, whispering in Todd's ear. "Now go home, spruce up, take him out to dinner, and, as Jack would say, 'lay him like flooring'."

He vanished in a swirl of shadows.


End file.
